


Just Your Fool

by TheWormThatTurns



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWormThatTurns/pseuds/TheWormThatTurns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Siding with the Legion isn't all that the Courier thought it would be. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Your Fool

 

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The Legion painted the town red and gold. Metaphorically, for now. The slaves were fast at work on new banners to hang from the walls. Well, after they cleared out the corpses. Anyway, within a few years, this pit would be the shining city of the Mojave. Gone would be the festering corruption of the dissolute, replaced by the new empire in the West, one nation stretching from the Dam to Arizona. Hell, Freeside might actually become livable without all the drunks and junkies pissing all over it.

  
What would be next? California always did sound nice. She heard there were many trees in parts of that territory, along the mountains. And there was still the NCR to consider ...

  
"We wouldn't have it without you," drawled a familiar voice from the direction of the elevator.

  
The woman who was once a courier turned to that sound. Across the cocktail lounge of the Lucky 38, now emptied of its poisons and traces of its dead master, stood Caesar. Trailing not far behind him was Vulpes Inculta, leader of the Frumentarii. She inclined her head to them at once. "You credit me too much."

  
Lines formed around Caesar's eyes as he barked out a laugh. "That's what I like about you, Lavinia. You always know what to say. It'll serve you well as Empress."

  
She drew and held a breath. Let it go. Her voice sounded so small. "What?"

  
The older man paced around her, hands behind his back. "I appreciate your astonishment, but even you must know that a woman of loyalty is commendable. I wouldn't want to see you wasted on a mere decanus and it wouldn't do to put you in a collar after you've been so useful."

  
This couldn't be happening. She had beaten back the NCR for the Legion. Destroyed House. Done things that normal women, normal _men_ could not. She was extraordinary, above the rest, never to be bought or sold.

  
This — this was a joke.

  
Vulpes wore an oily smirk. "My lord, I think you may have broken her delicate mind in bestowing such an unexpected honor upon a woman of her ... caliber. You've rendered her quite speechless."

  
That sneaking bastard always was too perceptive for his own good. Or anyone's.

  
"You don't need to burden yourself with weapons," Caesar said to her, his face a mask of distaste. He gestured to the pistol at her hip, Maria, the very same gun taken from the man who had shot her. "Law has come into this land. You can be as you are now." He stepped closer to her. "What you are meant to be." Another step. "Faithful. Obedient. A true woman."

  
A slave in all but name. Of course, as Caesar's bride, she would undoubtedly wear something marginally better than rags. An empress deserved gold on the bars of her cage. Maybe they'd wrap her up in pretty bedsheets, as close an approximation to the tunics of Rome Arcade had told her about, once, when they were still friends.

  
She strangled a terrible laugh.

  
"Yes," Vulpes said. His cold blue eyes never looked so alive as they did now."Put away your guns. They're such ... vulgar things on the weaker sex."

  
She had won a war. Conquered an opposing army. Fought and bled. She'd even saved Caesar's life. And he thought her becoming a wife was a reward? _His_ wife? No, this couldn't be real.

  
"Drop your burdens," a man said, faraway to her ears.

  
She reached for the gun in her holster.

 

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**Author's Note:**

> Fic title comes from song of same name composed by Buddy Johnson, as FO:NV quests tend to share titles with songs too.


End file.
